Corporate Mommy

January 21, 2009

I WILL. Do Anything. I WILL. Teach. (Slam Poetry)

Reading.

Writing.

For these skills, more than anything else. This is why I wake up every morning and stretch out, breath deep, and report to work at the dining room table.

My son can't (YET) read at grade level. He's 8 years old; he struggles to understand street signs and read basic instructions. All the testing in the world has come back with a diagnosis I already knew: he's wired a little different.

So we plug forward. Armed with everything they could give me and the wisdom of more. I implement and discard, press and retract. And? He can read more today than he could last week. Last month. Last Year.

I will use anything, anything, to help my son learn to read and write that doesn't kill his joy of either.

This week, I decided to bring slam poetry into our lives. I'm constantly trying to change things up and find new ways to make reading and writing and words interesting to Bear. Armed with Wham! It's a Poetry Jam! by Sara Holbrook from the library, Bear and I spent the non-inauguration parts of yesterday and Monday hopping about the house and performing poems.

We started with a call/return piece that he could easily read:

TO BE
I am
you see.
I am
what's me.
I am
not done.
I am
to be.

Since there's an odd number of lines, we went around this for 10 or 15 minutes a go. He acted out his words a little differently each time, sinking his teeth into it.

Then he flipped through the book looking for another one and found "Copycat" He absolutely loves this poem; it sounds just like a sibling fight. There's another called "Baseball Player," that he turns into a 1-boy play.

I have to help him read the poems the first few times, then he's able to read in time himself. Embellishing as he gets comfortable.

Times like this make me feel 12-feet tall. Just...12 feet tall. And mom to the most persistent, beautiful kid in the universe.

He woke me up asking if there was any other kids doing slam poetry out there we could listen to. I found some (most is laden with enough profanity to curl even my hair).

And this bit, which I saw on Def Poetry Jam ages ago - by Taylor Mali that made me feel like saying 'Amen'. (profanity: "ass-kicking" & G_d dam)

Posted by: Elizabeth at 04:07 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 421 words, total size 3 kb.

1 This reminds me of an article in the Washington Post a few weeks ago about a poet who teaches grade school kids to write slam poetry: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111401691.html

Posted by: Nic at January 21, 2009 09:33 AM (honoN)

2 That was a great clip. I like that you are using less italics and parentheses in your writing as the entries go on. Some are useful and add emphasis but too many are distracting and seem like you're trying too hard (maybe I'm alone in thinking that though). Your words are almost always strong enough to stand on their own. Otherwise, it's good to see you writing so much.

Posted by: Liz at January 22, 2009 01:46 AM (pj4RW)

3 Thanks, Liz. What great criticism. I could just say that I use call-outs and such to make my writing easier to read but you're probably right that they are crutches